Author: Seamus Redmond

We here at YellowBelly Beer love our one-off specials. They give us the opportunity to be experimental, innovative and to collaborate with some of the best breweries around. While February will be no different, we’ll also be giving some extra love to our flagship range this month – the beers that keep our glasses full and fridges stocked throughout the year. We love brewing and drinking these four beers and we hope you will too, while enjoying some new videos, comics, animations, food recipes using the beers or joining us at an event near you.

We will also be running a competition throughout the month for a mixed case of our flagship beers. To be in with a chance to win, post a photo of yourself drinking Citra, Hopped in Space, Kellerbier or Castaway using the hashtag #YellowBellyBeer. On the last day, the 28th February, we’ll put all the names into a top hat and the winner will be chosen at random. The person who sends us the BEST picture, as chosen by our team, will receive a very special token of appreciation from us.

Flagship Beers

‘Citra Pale Ale’ American Pale Ale | ABV 4.8%

When YellowBelly launched in May 2015 our Head Brewer Declan Nixon was given a short brief by founder Nicky Lambert. “Give me a nice pale ale, and the rest is up to yourself.” Nicky might have lived to regret the second part of that brief, but Declan exceeded himself with the creation of his award-winning Pale Ale. Originally titled ‘APA MK 3’ on the brewpub’s chalkboard, it got a rebrand in May 2016 and has since been known as ‘Citra Pale Ale.’ June 2017 was an important year for the brewery as we moved to our new plant, with inhouse canning line. This allowed the beer to be nationally distributed in bars and off licences across the country. Many awards and mentions in high profile publications later, the beer is now our biggest seller and exported to 9 European countries. Despite the name, there are no citrus additions to the beer and all the orange and grapefruit flavour is derived from the use of the ‘Citra’ hop. The malt bill is simple and uncomplicated to allow the characteristics of the hop to shine through. Most of the hops in this beer are added during post fermentation in a process known as ‘dry hopping.’ This highlights the fruity properties of the hops whilst also extracting minimal bitterness. All these steps go into making ‘Citra Pale Ale’ the beer it is today and enjoyed throughout Ireland and beyond.

Castaway | Passionfruit Sour | ABV 4.2%

“Lets brew a sour beer with added passionfruit and sell it in our provincial town brewpub” – is an unverified snippet of a conversation sure to have been had sometime in April 2016. Luckily nobody objected and ‘Castaway’ was born. First packaged into the fabled YellowBelly bottled series of June 2016, this beer put the brewery in the thoughts and hearts of craft beers fans across the country and remains a cult classic ever since. Now available as a permanent offering in keg and 440ml cans. Castaway is a kettle sour which means it has been soured using lactobacillus in the boil kettle. The bacteria are killed during the boiling process, and the finished beer keeps its acidic quality. The addition of a tropical Islands worth of passion fruit into the fermenter adds all our extra layers of tartness, fruit and sourness which gives ‘Castaway’ its unmistakable aroma and flavour. A beer that just has to be tried and enjoyed all year around.

Kellerbier | Unfiltered Helles Lager | ABV 4.3%

At 4.3% ABV the only thing this lager shares with mainstream equivalents is the alcohol content. When we set out to brew a lager, we knew we wanted to brew one with flavour. We took inspiration from the kings of the style in Germany and got it into keg and 500ml ‘Big Boy’ cans. Our ‘Kellerbier’ is an unfiltered Helles lager, so expect a slightly cloudy appearance, sweet malty flavours and a full-bodied mouthfeel. Carbonation is also kept lower than its mainstream friends to allow the flavour to be appreciated fully. The finish is clean and smooth with a low bitterness to encourage continuous quaffs.

Hopped in Space | IPA | ABV 5.5%

‘Hopped in Space’ was made part of the permanent line up in May 2018 when our 440ml cans first started hitting shelves, and it has proved to be a very popular addition. This West Coast IPA is packed to the brim with flavours of peach, mango, orange and grapefruit. This is achieved with the heavy-handed use of Mandarina Bavaria, Simcoe, and Summit hops. All famous for their punchy, juicy fruit qualities. This beer pours a shade of copper as some darker malts are also used to provide balance, sweetness and to increase mouthfeel. The malts in question being Pilsner, Vienna, Red X, Cara Clair. These layers of malt are skilfully matched and balanced with the hop additions to provide a classic example of the West Coast style.

You can find these beers in all good stockists of craft beer across Ireland, and can now be found across Europe thank to our hard working distributors. If you want to find your nearest stockist, use the link below or send us a Private Message on Social Media using @yellowbellybeer.

Wexford, Ireland – Oct 18, 2018 – YellowBelly Beer announced today that it will release its very first animated short-film next Thursday, 25th October 2018, via a mass digital screening event.

The 5-minute animation explains the origin story behind their much loved brewery mascot (who already features across the brewery’s beers, merchandise, comics and video game) with the aim of introducing beer drinkers to the world of YellowBelly Beer and giving those already familiar with the brewery a deeper understanding behind the artwork of their favourite Irish beer.

“This is our first animated feature, and we are really excited to see people’s reactions – we want our viewers to have as much fun watching it, as we did creating it!” says Paul Reck, Creative Director at YellowBelly Beer. Paul is the full time artist-in-residence at YellowBelly Beer, whose illustrations can be seen across every beer can, tap badge, t-shirt and comic book series.

“We started telling the story of ‘YellowBelly’ back in 2015 in the very first logo. We always wanted over time to develop this into short comic books, longer story-arcs, a video game and that’s not mentioning the individual story and art behind every label and tap badge. This is our way of going right back to the origin of our character, a gifted brewer who just so happens to discover a device that allows him to travel through time and space to seek recipes and ingredients for great brews. It’s not always going to be straightforward however, thanks to an arch nemesis and some bad guys, and that’s the journey we’re taking people on.”

If you want to check out the film, it will be posted on the YellowBelly Beer Facebook Page at 1pm (GMT) on Thursday 25th October 2018 and also across the social media channels of YellowBelly Beer stockists throughout Ireland and the Rest of Europe. The film will also be screened at this year’s Waterford Film Festival in November and some other specially selected events.

You can also help tell the story, by sharing the video on launch day and joining the conversation using #YELLOWBELLYBEER.

Independent craft breweries, BrewDog (Scotland) and YellowBelly Beer (Ireland), have teamed up to brew ‘Kottbusser’, a once-forgotten German beer style, at YellowBelly’s brewery in Wexford, Ireland.

This innovative incarnation of the long-lost Kottbusser, which has been named after the beer style itself, has been brought to life on BrewDog’s 2nd generation brew kit. Once responsible for bringing iconic BrewDog staples including Punk IPA, Tokyo* and Nanny State into this world, at BrewDog’s original Fraserburgh site, it’s now the beating heart of its Irish brethren’s Wexford set up.

The concept of a collaboration came about as a result of BrewDog’s latest international adventure, whereby the brewer has partnered with 10 breweries across Europe to brew a series of boundary-pushing beers that reflect both BrewDog and its partner breweries’ attitudes and techniques. The YellowBelly Beer collab brew will be the will be closely followed by a mash up with Brewski from Sweden, due to launch in early May. Manic Mango will be available in Sweden only from 4th May at Systembolaget.

BrewDog Brewing Manager John Allen said:

“We are always looking to collaborate with exciting brewers from all over the world, and when it came to Ireland, the guys and the beers from YellowBelly Beer really caught our attention after featuring them in our bars last year. Brewing with the team was awesome, and they’re definitely destined for great things with the selection and quality of beers they are making.”

The brain child of YellowBelly Beer’s Head Brewer, Declan Nixon, and BrewDog’s Brewing Manager, John Allen, ‘Kottbusser’ is an old German beer style from the 1800s, named after the town Cottbus in Germany. The original style was sour, similar in acidity to its relative Berliner Weisse, and brewed using wheat, oats and barley, featuring a healthy addition of noble hop, with Honey and molasses then added to give the beer more fermentable sugars and subtle, complex undertones.

To add to the excitement of this collaboration, BrewDog and YellowBelly Beer are brewing TWO iterations of their Kottbusser. The first is a kettle-soured version, featuring Scottish heather honey and Mr. Jeffares Wexford Blackcurrants. For the second version, the brewers are creating a straight version without the sour edge. This latter interpretation of the beer will be brewed at BrewDog’s Ellon site in Scotland.

Brewing Manger John Allen continued:

“With YellowBelly doing some great kettle sours, we thought this recipe would work great with a tart, sweet kick. So not a “traditional” Kottbusser but neither us nor YellowBelly are particularly known for having a traditional attitude to brewing.”

REUNITING OLD FRIENDS

As well as reviving lost recipes, BrewDog has also been reliving old memories on its 2nd generation brewkit, which is now part of YellowBelly Beer’s impressive setup in Wexford. This brewkit was the main hub of brewing at BrewDog in its infancy before eventually becoming a pilot kit, after expansion, for its innovative small batch brews.

John added:

“There’s an awesome and unique link between YellowBelly Beer and BrewDog in that they have the original brew kit from Fraserburgh that they installed early 2017 to boost capacity. After many hard yards in Scotland, the YellowBelly team gave it a facelift and added a few little bits of kit. They are now smashing out some great tasting, high quality beers.”

The beer starts hitting stores next week, but you can join the YellowBelly Beer crew to officially launch ‘Kottbusser’ at some of these locations:

· Simon Lambert & Sons, Wexford (Friday 30th March)

· Caribou, Galway (Thursday 5th April)

· Barcadia, Cork (Friday 6th April)

· Underdog, Dublin (Saturday 7th April)

Keep an eye to YellowBelly Beer and BrewDog social media channels for more info and behind the scenes footage from the brewday.

Calling All Designated Divers

(Tuesday 9th January 2018)

Dive straight right into January with a brand new innovation from Ireland’s top drinks producers, YellowBelly Beer and Black Castle Drinks.

‘Designated Diver’, a dry-hopped soda for adults, contains 0% alcohol and 100% pure refreshment. This drink is the first of it’s kind in Ireland. Born from a mutual desire for creativity, YellowBelly Beer (Wexford) and Black Castle Drinks (Wicklow) team up after a long-standing admiration for each others product ranges, as well as shared values for using innovative recipes and the finest possible ingredients. With a common aim to consistently offer consumers a new experience with every sip.

Black Castle Drinks bring their soft drink making experience to the fore by creating a tasty base of lemon and pear for ‘Designated Diver’, which is beautifully balanced with YellowBelly’s heavy-handed dry-hopping with Citra and Huell Melon hops. Dry-hopping is a process where hops are added to an almost finished beer to enhance aroma and flavour, this technique works perfectly here and marries the collaboration to create the perfect balance between hop fruitiness and refreshing lemon tartness. Finally, this craft soda has been carbonated to a sparkle one expects from a soda and the can has been adorned by YellowBelly Beer’s Creative Director, Paul Reck, with his signature award-winning artwork.

Ditch your mainstream soft drinks, ‘Designated Diver’ is packed full of flavour and offers a brand new alternative for craft beer drinkers and those looking for a little refreshment.

2017 continues to be a landmark year for Wexford brewery, YellowBelly Beer.

Beginning with the opening of their new 10,000 sq. ft. facility in January, this year has already seen the installation of a new 6000L brewhouse, once owned by craft beer legends BrewDog; the addition of a state-of-the-art Wild Goose canning line; a UK-wide tap takeover event on St Patricks Day; and the commencement of YellowBelly Beer exports to Northern Ireland, UK and Italy.

Now, the fruit of their labour is receiving international acclaim, with the inclusion of their ‘CitraPaleAle’ in a new “bookazine” called ‘Craft Beer: 365 Best Beers in the World’. Written by UK Beer Experts Chris Hall, Matthew Curtis and Claire Bullen, it trawls the world of craft beer to bring its readers the very best, with one such beer belonging to some very happy brewers in Wexford. ‘CitraPaleAle’ is one of YellowBelly Beer’s flagship range and is currently widely available across multiple bars and off-licences in Ireland & UK.

However, there’s no rest for the wicked, and it’s business as normal at YellowBelly Beer HQ. Head Brewer Declan Nixon currently keeps to his schedule of releasing one new small batch beer per week and one new limited edition 330ml can per month, continuously evolving their product range and offering beer consumers something new.

As well as launching our latest limited edition 330ml can ‘Great for the Town’ Strawberry Sour, we’ve just signed a deal with Libra Drinks, to begin getting our beers to the fine people of the United Kingdom!

Your Name (required)

Your Email (required)

Your Location

Anything in Particular?

Your Message

King Kong Company & YellowBelly Beer
Present
‘COMMOTION LOTION’

King Kong Company (Best Live Act Award 2016 – Pure M Magazine) and YellowBelly Beer (Gold Medal Winners Alltech International Beer Cup 2017) have joined forces to launch a “Buckfast-infused” beer for festival season. It’s called Commotion Lotion, and everyone involved is deranged with excitement about it, but possibly a little reluctant to share this limited edition brew. One bulging eyed brewer had to be dragged out from under a tank, cradling a slab of cans, hissing “preciousssssss” as the things were being loaded into a delivery van.

Commotion Lotion is a beer built specifically for festivals, in a handy 330ml can, perfect for bringing to gigs, it’s refreshing, packed with fruit and very easy to drink! We’ve drawn on our experience to create the best possible brew and King Kong Company added a healthy dash of feckless abandon.

Commotion Lotion is available, in very limited supply, from all good stockists of craft beer from Thursday 22nd June, just in time for Body&Soul.

King Kong Company have gained a reputation as the best festival band on the island. At Electric Picnic last summer there were as many heads outside the tent dancing in the rain as there were crammed in to it. Fergal D’Arcy from Today FM said it was the “Gig of The Picnic”, and Dan Hegarty of 2FM said “King Kong Company stole the Electric Picnic weekend”. This summer the band will beat their chest further afield, with some exciting gigs that include Glastonbury, Boomtown Fair and Amsterdam Dance Event, but you can catch them in their natural habit when they headline the Midnight Circus Stage at Body&Soul on Saturday 24th of June. Body&Soul is the spiritual home of King Kong Company, it’s the festival that gave them their start and it’s the festival where they’ve had some of their most memorable performances. Expect something special.

At last years Great Irish Beer Festival, YellowBelly and King Kong Company first crossed paths. Sparks flew. KKC have featured on the brewery playlist since, and cans of YellowBelly have been in the fridge at the bands HQ. The Beer Boys invited the KKC crew across the Wexican border to visit their Willy-Wonka-like facility, and as with all the best plans in the world, the notion of a tonic wine infused festival beer was born while a few other brews were being sampled (it would have been negligent not to conduct as much market research as possible).

Ah Sheffield, famous for steel, silver and naming their football teams after days of the week. It was also the home to 7 members of team YellowBelly for the Paddy’s Day weekend, amazingly the bosses had agreed to let us all attend. A decision they would most definitely regret.

Back in January we closed a deal that meant YellowBelly was pouring in all 32 Brewdog bars in the UK over the weekend and the cheapest Ryanair flight we could find was to Sheffield, so that’s where we headed. Of course that wasn’t the only reason, the impressively named ‘Beer X’ trade show was happening the same weekend, and we also managed to swag a YellowBelly tap takeover at a local brewpub ‘The Sentinel’. This was going to be a gud’un.

We knew our luck was in as we took our seats on the plane, we had managed to swindle the emergency exit seats. I was more than willing to be responsible for everyone’s safety in order to gain all that sweet sweet legroom. In fact, I would have been prepared to fly the bloody plane if it meant avoiding Ryanair’s cramped ‘pleb’ seats. So we stretched out and enjoyed the show. The show in question consisted of the cabin crew trying to cram an hour of a sales pitch into our 25-minute flight. Newspapers and scratch cards were sold on the same run, with absolutely no heed paid to the subtle differences inherent in each product. None of either were sold.

We arrived in Sheffield at around 10am, and to our dismay the nearest brewpub was closed for business, which meant slumming it with pints of Wolf Rock Red IPA in our Holiday Inn, which was prefixed by me with “Hotel, Motel……” at any given opportunity! Oh how we laughed.

Today was Thursday the 16th and the night of our first U.K tap takeover, in The Sentinel Brewpub. We couldn’t wait. Unfortunatley we had to wait, but spirits were high as we made our way to the ‘Beer X’ trade show. Expectations based on the exciting name were soon put to bed as we entered a converted ice hockey stadium just outside the city centre. What once used to be a hive of passion and drama is now a room of 50-year-old men talking about pumps. “But at least there will be beer”, I offered to an increasingly frustrated Darragh Barnes. But alas, I was wrong. People selling cans had no beer in them, people selling taps had them running dry and bottle sellers were selling just that, empty bottles

Next up was our takeover, but first we went for meat. Lots of meat. Suitably refreshed, we headed to The Sentinel to drink beer and talk shite. Well actually, I only had to drink beer, Dec and Paul were leading the shite talking! There was a great reaction to Paul, as people learned about the hard work and creativity that goes into designing a YellowBelly Label. No one could understand Dec.

We were then let loose onto the streets of Sheffield where we took in the sights. The sights being- The Rutland Arms which was funny to say in a Sheffield accent, The Shakespeare Public House which was situated on the excellently named Gibraltar Street, and The Devonshire Cat, a pub owned by the lads from Abbeydale Brewery. Suffice to say we had a lovely night made all the better by a few swift halves and a couple of yards of ale.

The next morning was Paddy’s Day, it was also the day our beer would be pouring in all 32 Brewdog bars in the U.K. We were all very excited. To help contain this excitement we decided to sit in a tattoo parlour’s waiting room for 7 hours, yes 7 hours. Dec, Darragh Ruairi and I decided we wanted to do something to remember the trip. Paul drew us a Top Hat and moustache tattoo and in we went. We were shown to the waiting room and our home for the next while. It was admittedly a very nice waiting room, with plush leather couches and an X-box. As the hours progressed it started to feel like the next day after a house party. The rollover. Episodes of Family Guy were on an eternal loop, everyone was hungover, people were taking turns going to the nearby off licence to grab £1 cans of Red Stripe, and the day seemed to take forever!

I was the last in to get tattooed, my reckoning being that he would have perfected it by now. He could have also been very tired and sick of doing the same bloody tattoo, but I took a chance! Big shout out to Tenacious Tattoo for looking after us for the day, they were absolute legends. Around 9pm we finally got to leave and head into town. We went straight to the nearest Brewdog and celebrated our new ink with a pint of Castaway. Our first pint of YellowBelly on foreign shores, unless you count Northern Ireland of course, and we do. It was a great night; the staff were class and it was great to meet loads of new people and spread the good word of YellowBelly. Once that was out of the way we made our way to ‘Corporation’, a local nightclub where we were re-introduced to our old friend Mr. Cans of Red Stripe. This time at £2 a can. The rest of the night was a blur, I did manage to keep my cling film wrapped around my arm which was a plus. It was a rough morning.